[Mr. Vega]

Also spanish beaches.

And Costa Rican beaches.

[Grizzly]

Also spanish beaches.

And Costa Rican beaches.

The dutch have specific nude beaches.

[Flipside]

You can get your tits out on certain beaches in Cornwall, but I think this isn't really relevant to the points being made

[Dragon]

Exactly. It's not about whether nude beaches exist (they do in many places, even in rather prudish Poland), but about what people think about showing them in video games. Europe in general is much better about attitudes on sexuality than the US, but they're not free (even the French and the Dutch) from the fallacy I was talking about. Children, in particular, are much more "protected" against sexual content than against violent content, and this is a worldwide trend. Censorship of tasteless gore like Hatred causes controversy, even though there's little merit in the game, artistic or otherwise (I oppose its censorship on principle, but I couldn't care less for the game itself). On the other hand, there was a controversy about one GTA title not censoring a sex minigame thoroughly enough (it took some simple modding to enable, not enough for moral guardians, apparently).

[Flipside]

Thing is, Censorship is a very broad brush, especially when applied to a Distributor that has every right to pick and choose what it distributes, not because of Moralistic concerns on their part (though possibly on the part of other people) but because of self-interest with regards to the companies image.

So did Steam 'censor'? No, they withdrew an item from their catalogue because other people got vocal about their concerns. I suppose in a way the thing you should be afraid of is the day a group of people cannot get a company to, at the very least, listen to a concern.

It's kind of a collision of ideals, because 'Freedom of Speech' says one thing, but the concept of a customer-driven market says another. In this case, if you look at how Freedom of Speech is defined, I think you'll find the Capitalist view carries the most weight.

Long story short, it's not Censorship, it's Public Relations.

[NGTM-1R]

Hatred got hit with an AO rating for North America.

Goodbye, Hatred. That blocks any console distribution and Valve's never run an AO game via Steam before. It's almost like you made bad decisions to shock people.

[deathfun]

Hatred got hit with an AO rating for North America.

Goodbye, Hatred. That blocks any console distribution and Valve's never run an AO game via Steam before. It's almost like you made bad decisions to shock people.

I could've sworn there has been an AO game on console before...

Although being an AO rated game sort of gives it that token "Oooooo" status. They're far and few

[Dragon]

[...]it's still some kind of achievement to have the second game in history getting AO rating for violence and harsh language only,"

Emphasis mine. Now I wonder, what was the first one? Manhunt (I recall it was pretty controversial, too, for similar reasons)? I thought AO is pretty much reserved for stuff like outright porn and actual gambling. All I can say, it certainly does deserve the rating.

[Mongoose]

I could've sworn there has been an AO game on console before...

According to this list, it looks like the only one ever was GTA: San Andreas over the "Hot Coffee" nonsense, at least until Rockstar pulled that version for one with the content removed.

[Dragon]

Well, Thrill Kill would've been for consoles (it's also an answer to my question, turns out Manhunt did have "strong sexual content", too), but it got canceled. Besides this, Manhunt 2, Hatred, GTA, Fahrenreit and that gambling app, every single title on that list is porn, and usually old porn, to boot (well, Larry is a lot more than that, but it's still about sex).

[Phantom Hoover]

The whole AO thing, by the way, is the kind of thing I was alluding to earlier in this thread when I said that you can't just say "oh who cares if the distributors regulate what content they provide, it's their right and what harm does it do".

[NGTM-1R]

I could've sworn there has been an AO game on console before...

Not at release. San Andreas had its rating upgraded (for somewhat specious reasons) and wasn't pulled, but all the major console companies at this time refuse to carry AO titles, at least partially because too many distribution outlets refuse to. If you get hit with AO right out of the gate you're dead.

[Scotty]

The whole AO thing, by the way, is the kind of thing I was alluding to earlier in this thread when I said that you can't just say "oh who cares if the distributors regulate what content they provide, it's their right and what harm does it do".

I'm not sure what this is getting at.  AO games aren't forbidden from being sold by major distributors.  Major distributors have collectively decided to avoid selling AO titles, for reasons that I'm sure vary from distributor to distributor.

If that's not what you were bringing that up for, I honestly can't parse the line of discussion here.

[Phantom Hoover]

And because nobody will sell AO games, AO games don't get made. And because the ESRB gets to decide what makes a game 'Adults Only', the ESRB gets to decide what content can get put in games. The resultant chilling effect is well-documented, and if you don't think it has a detrimental effect on the medium, well... I'm not sure what to say to that.

[Scotty]

AO games get made all the time.  I'd wager you could find a couple hundred by typing the phrase 'porn game' into your search engine of choice.

The counterpoint to your point is the question of whether the sorts of things that result in a game being rated AO bring anything constructive or beneficial to the medium that their absence leaves lacking.  Given how lenient the ESRB is on rating games AO already, I'm not sure that there's a major detriment going on here.

[NGTM-1R]

Phantom, your argument is predicated on the possibility of the ESRB using their power in service of some kind of political or social-engineering goal rather than attempting to enforce the social mores of the moment and changing as they do. I'm not sure you can sustain that argument beyond a few individual and politically-motivated cases like this one and San Andreas, thus I am skeptical of a "detrimental effect on the medium" as that implies a pattern of behavior that may not exist.

Indeed, with DAI out right now I could construct an argument that the ESRB is considerably more progressive than the majority of American jurisdictions about what does and does not constitute sufficient sexual nudity to rate an attempt at censorship.

[Mongoose]

As Scotty pointed out, there are literally thousands of "AO" games available right now, the vast majority of which blissfully live out their existences without ever bothering with the ESRB.  The only reason a game needs to go through the ESRB is if it's intended to be sold at retail, which generally isn't a necessity if you're targeting a dedicated niche audience (like, say, eroge dating-sim fans).  It's the same exact reason why the massive amount of porn films produced every year don't bother with being rated by the MPAA; they're not going to be sitting on the shelves at Wal-Mart in the first place.

As for the specific case of Hatred, like I said before, the only potential reason it couldn't generate plenty of sales even without Steam would be lack of publicity, which it had in spades even before the additional boost of being rated AO.  Anyone who would have potentially bought this game will know exactly where to find it.  They're not losing out on anything.

[Phantom Hoover]

Did Hot Coffee suddenly not happen or something?

[Mongoose]

You mean the thing that both NGTM-1R and myself specifically mentioned as a one-off based on asinine reasoning?

[Lorric]

I guess the thing to do would be to have two versions of the game. A modified version that gets them to drop the AO rating, and the original version for where they can still sell it. They could call the modified version Hatred and the original version Unbridled Hatred.

EDIT: I looked up the Hot Coffee thing. I understand why it garnered the AO rating for the game, but I find it kind of amusing that consensual sex with your girlfriend = NO, but the rest of what your character gets up to and can get up to =